A Round of Robins

In searching for the term to describe a collection of robins in the sky, I discovered the word “time-slice.” A slice of time is the time assigned for a procedure scheduled to run its course. Wikipedia suggests it is interchangeable with “quantum,” a word that seems as mysterious as a black hole, but not as mysterious as slicing time on a wooden block, with a sharp knife. This is when I regret dropping high-school physics for Mythology, though the few classes in Physics are clearer in retrospective memory. A flock of robins is called a round, and I was surprised by one as I drove by the beach early this morning, the streets covered with snow a few hours old. Spring and snow, robbins, and that term of Keats, not the double negative, but the negative capability, to understand two opposing entities at once.

This is what the outside and inside of the Cutler Majestic Theatre looks like, first from back in 1882 in a print from the Library of Congress, and from some iPhotos I snapped after yesterday’s performance of “Man in a Case” with the inimitable Baryshnikov. A difficult, intriguing, and ultimately provocative and memorable performance, it held the negative capabilities of the worlds of drama and modern dance; of Chekhov and Baryshnikov, and the intricacies of love.